Fiverr... you get what you pay for...

So, I added myself to the ranks of low priced services on Fiverr recently, and it's been... an educational experience.

I joined largely because you can now create gigs there that don't cost solely $5. To be perfectly honest there's not much worthwhile, service wise, that I can provide for just $5. When I saw that fiverr had branched out enough to allow services that cost more than $5 even as a base price, I became intrigued.

But, I have learned in the month that I've been listed there, that the people who shop fiverr still don't expect to pay more than $5 despite this expansion.

And fair enough, when the website is still called fiverr.

However, one would think that expectations would be realistic about one can get for the aforementioned five dollars.

One would be quite incorrect about that.

I signed up to fiverr to hawk my services as a formatter and graphic designer. Once one has signed up to sell services one can then check out requests from buyers in their service category. The number of people searching for someone to fix errors that other fiverr sellers have made is... impressive but not in a good way. And the number of people looking for custom designed covers, or full book formatting for just $5 also makes a negative impression.

Apparently, the folks who use fiverr as buyers are unaware of what these services are really worth. They then appear surprised when they receive subpar work for their $5 fee and then are even more surprised to learn that it will cost more than $5 for someone to fix things.

I get it, I think. I mean the whole site is designed to provide super cheap services but... well, it irks me a bit that people don't understand the value of the work that they're asking for. Overall, I don't think fiverr is necessarily good for people selling services or the people that buy them, although their move to allow for more expensive "gigs" is a step in the right direction. Ultimately, I'll probably continue to list with them, but I doubt I'll get much business from them until there's a shift in the buyers recognizing that you may not actually want what $5 will buy you.